What is SEO Testing?
Introduction
SEO testing is the method of making changes to your website and measuring ranking or organic search traffic. You can run an SEO test if you want to make changes to your website and are unsure if it is positive or destructive for your website’s SEO.
So why should we run this test anyway? What can be other benefits of running this test? Let us see what the benefits of running the SEO test are.
Why do you need to Run SEO Testing?
If you spend your time and energy on the SEO change, but it does not impact your website, then this is the same as the SEO changes that negatively affect your website. So in this scenario, you need to run an SEO test before making any changes. It will save you a lot of time and energy.
It would help if you consistently work accordingly to your website’s needs, looking out for what is suitable for it and what is not for a perfectly working website’s SEO. If your team members have different opinions regarding the change in the website, don’t just go for it. Run the test, then start working.
Making SEO changes can drain a lot of resources. If the changes you are making do not have the anticipated effects, then it is time you should run the test to see if the desired changes can have a good impact within less time and lesser resources.
Types of SEO Tests
There are three types of SEO Tests. Let us see what they are:
SEO A/B Testing
SEO A/B testing, also known as split testing, is used to make changes in some but not all. After applying this test, you can compare the difference between the changed and unchanged pages. The pages you changed are known as the variant group, and the unchanged pages are known as the control group.
SEO A/B testing is used when there is a negative effect of the SEO changes, but with this test, it will affect only a small subsection of pages.
This test is not time-consuming since it is done only on a small section of the pages.
It will help you control variables and seasonality, which is not in your control because these things can affect your pages.
SEO Serial Testing
We don’t usually recommend using this. Because when you use this, it will make changes on all the pages of your website. After all the changes, you can observe the results which are not suitable for your website. It can also have other adverse effects on your website.
If the change is wrong, then all the pages are dragged in this, not only a few.
Since it is making changes in all your pages, it will take a lot of time.
It will not control variables and seasonality which are out of your control.
SEO Time Based Testing
You can make a change on one page and see how that page performs. It does not make any sense to make changes one by one. You can ignore this testing too.
How can you Run SEO Testing?
We have mentioned a few methods. With their help, you can run an SEO test. Let us quickly see what they are:
Decide what you want to be changed on your website. And also, look out what impact it will have on your website visibility. It would help if you made a theory about what changes you are going to make and what outcomes you will have.
Don’t assume things and screw your website. Choose the common pages, like e-commerce or blog posts, to lower the impact of substantial adverse effects.
It will be better if you run the test on pages with lower organic traffic. So there is no huge loss. You will also get the idea and experience of how to run these tests, and you will have less effect on your website.
Apart from this, it would help if you also decide the duration you will run the test. It isn’t easy. This may take from a few weeks to a few months. It depends on the number of pages and the traffic you get. You can always start with a month duration for the beginning, and you can leave it for longer if you want more data.
In the end, you can track your results using tools. You can use an SEO testing tool for this. It will get connected with your google search console and show the results.
Conclusion
You need only SEO testing only if your website gets a good amount of organic traffic. And we are talking about hundreds to thousands of visits per month. Only then does SEO testing make sense. On the other hand, if your website doesn’t get much traffic, you need to focus on other stuff, like adding more backlinks, improving content, and internal links.
